Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Join My Tribe

True genius knows how to turn lead into gold, or at least lemons into lemonade. I am not a true genius, but every once in a while I stumble upon an idea that is just too good to pass up. My latest breakthrough came from the Kaweah Indian Nation, a fake Native American tribe that has been selling tribal memberships to illegal aliens for $400 per membership. The tribal elders promised that members would get Social Security numbers and become US citizens.

While the Kaweah were declared fraudulent in 1984, and while a current lawsuit prohibits them from continuing their membership drive, I love the idea and wish to apply it to my own tribe, the Jews.

Our numbers are small and shrinking. We need members and current rates of conversion aren’t even making a dent in our rate of decline. Even when counting as Jews only people recognized as Jews by the Reform Jewish establishment we are still a dying tribe. So why not sell memberships? After all it is much easier to market a $400 membership than it is to market the current cost of male membership: circumcision. And, unlike severed foreskins, the cash collected can be used to promote Jewish projects.

My idea has the added bonus of bringing people into a real tribe. The downside is that being a Jew in America is not the same as being an American Jew, and we could not promise social security numbers and citizenship. At least not in this country. But what about Israel?

The Law of Return states that any Jew can become an automatic citizen of Israel. And Israel will help settle them and teach them Hebrew. Getting illegal aliens to convert to Judaism and then shipping them off to Israel would solve two problems. First it would increase the size of the Jewish nation. Second it would provide a workable answer to the question, What do we do with the millions of illegal aliens already in the US?

So my idea is this: First we set up registration tables on the Mexican side of the US border. We can spare people the dangerous trek into the US and fly them to Tel Aviv from Mexico City. This will stop the tide of new illegal immigrants into the United States. Second, in cities across the country we advertise Jewish tribal memberships for $400 (with discounts for families). Some of the money we collect will be used to pay rabbis to perform mass conversions. They will convert the illegal aliens to Judaism and give them a card stating that they are now members of the tribe. At that point they can A) move to Israel, or B) stay in the US and claim the US government’s refusal to give them citizenship is an act of anti-Semitism.

This seems like a win-win proposition to me. I think it could even be done on line. People could convert by pledging allegiance to God, Torah, and Israel, pay using a credit card, and then book a flight to the homeland on Orbitz or Expedia.

I plan to offer my idea to each of the presidential candidates. I’ll let you know which if any choose to use it.